Tableau
by Seven Malfoy
Summary: A mixture of drabbles and such. A place for plot bunnies to roam free and for a place to deposit fleeting ideas that will probably never become full stories.  Warnings at the top of individual chapters.
1. Only Kidding Themselves

I don't own Harry Potter. 6th year, Canon implied.

He thought, mistakenly, that she could purify him.

It was almost a joke.

_Almost_

The animosity between them was fueled by something more. He could feel it just as he could feel his blood pumping through his veins.

The hatred, loathing that they all exchanged, barely veiled threats and an overall desire to hex each other into oblivion.

But that was how it has always been. He remembers, he knows instinctively that it began even before they all boarded the train to Hogwarts back in that fateful year when the Boy Who Lived graced the famed school with his presence.

The hatred had only grown since then, turning into a burning desire to see actual harm done, to see faces twisted in pain and to be able to gloat over that pain, flicking his wand just so, just like Bellatrix does whenever she's enjoying a bit of _fun. _

_Almost_

There was something there, something that even he didn't want to admit to himself. A burning passion down in the depths of his soul that kissing his off-again, on-again girlfriend did not quench. Something that even scrambled floundering in random broom closets did not remedy. Something that only one witch could cure, something that only tasting the sweet kisses of her mouth would remedy.

It became an obsession.

* * *

She was bored.

Bored beyond belief. She was _GOOD. _She was one third of the Golden Trio, destined to eventually face down Voldemort and his ilk, saving the Wizarding World from destruction.

That was if she didn't die of boredom.

It wasn't that she didn't have enough going on, with keeping Ron and Harry out of trouble, and class work and all, but there had been this routine for quite a long time, and she was ready to spice things up.

And if she needed spice, he was a chili pepper.

Habanero. Her mind supplied. Scotch Bonnet. Thai Hot. She had learned about all these types of peppers once, when she had taken a summer cooking class with her mum, to bond. They both felt that she was slipping away, losing touch with what made her unique. She barely saw her parents anymore, spending much of her time among witches and wizards rather than the Muggles with whom she spent eleven years.

She needed HIM. She needed him to taint her, to pull her back into reality, to make her _FEEL. _

She did not want to admit that she felt empty inside, and that the fiery redhead she expected to fill her emptiness was no longer satisfactory. He was too good. As much as they quibbled and squabbled with each other, they were two similar. She was good, innocent, caring and sweet. And so was he.

Some part of her craved danger, and not just the danger of being best friends with Harry Potter, but the danger of being caught doing something she shouldn't be doing, of being somewhere nobody expected her to be with somebody nobody would imagine.

So she planned. If she wanted to be most effective helping Harry defeat Voldemort, she needed to be tainted, to be human, to feel passion about something.

She needed him to feel ALIVE.

* * *

They stared at each other from across the Room of Requirement.

"What do you want?" He spat.

"You've been following me around, and I want to know why?"

They were both breathing heavily. Exhausted after shooting spells at each other.

"It's none of your business you filthy _Mudblood!" _ He spat.

"Oh sure, call me that now, but I double checked. You've been following me around for a week at least!"

He took a quick glance at the door. It vanished.

She looked worriedly at the door as it vanished. Damn her subconscious!

They stared at each other for the longest time. Breathing labored, fiery intensity burning, but it seemed as though the room itself was suppressing their magic, their ability to duel each other into submission. So instead they stared.

And then they crashed.

He was pinned against the wall as his obsession stared deeply into his eyes before planting a searing kiss across his lips. He moved his hand up around her back and pulled her in, before flipping her around and pinning her to the wall. Her hands wrapped around his back and pulled him in deeper.

They broke apart and he led her over to the couch that had suddenly appeared. Somewhere along the way their outer robes vanished into a pool of black and she sat perched upon his lap, linked together as if they shared a common lung. His fingers traced licks of fire along the back of her neck, and her fingers worked through his perfect hair.

His shirt was the first to go, along with her sweater. Underneath he wore a undershirt, and her short sleeved blouse dipped just low enough to make his breathing even more ragged as they continued to touch each other, becoming acquainted with each other as if they had never met before. Then she saw it.

The skull and the snake. The Dark Mark, nearly black and almost _alive _against his porcelain skin. She touched it with just a bare finger. She looked back deep into his eyes and saw a question.

"Does it bother you?"

She wasn't sure what to say about that. His molten eyes were dark with desire, and she could feel the heat radiating off of him. She needed that fire within him to consume her, to maker her feel alive.

She planted a searing kiss on his lips, and then in a bizarre move, kissed IT. She ran her tongue lightly over it. She could feel the magic of it pulsing under her lips. She then looked back up to meet his eyes, shifting her weight on his lap and causing a groan.

"I need you" she whispered.

And he could do little more than agree.

* * *

The Sunday morning sun peeked in, and he felt lighter somehow. He had learned from his late Grandfather how to tell time based on the light coming in a window. It was barely 6am, if he was not mistaken. A body shifted next to him and he honestly took in his surroundings.

The room was a tasteful blend of grey, green and blue, soft bed with softer sheets, and a dark mass of chocolate colored curls. He looked over and saw the Dark Mark peeking through the mass of curls on his arm.

"Damn it!" He whispered to himself, but the figure in his arms had heard. However, it had nothing to do with the owner of those chocolate curls.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked panicked, looking about for an explanation.

"Morning."

She stared into his eyes, and he could see fury building in their chocolate depths before recognition and understanding filled those orbs.

"Morning." She replied. With that, he wanted nothing more than to stay here forever, away from the things that would taint this experience for him.

He shifted and she snuggled into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her and breathed in the scent of her hair. Neither of them had any plans, nor would be missed until noon at least. His mind flashed to last night.

"Was I your…." he murmured after a time.

"Yes." She nodded and continued to snuggle down into his arms.

The weight of what he had done settled on his body.

"Don't worry. I wanted that. I needed that." She sighed. "I wouldn't' have it any other way." She rotated until she was facing out, his _marked_ arm draped across her, a tableau against her pale skin.

He raised an eyebrow.

She flicked her eyes to his mark again, and sighed. "You wouldn't understand."

* * *

But he did.

She shifted again, facing him, staring into his eyes. Their lips joined again, and she wrapped her arms around his back, wiggling them underneath his back.

"Draco." She commanded.

He opened his eyes and looked up into hers.

"Hermione?" She shook her head.

"Call me what you called me last night."

He paused. "Mudblood?" Her cheeks flushed hot and her eyes darkened.

"Say it like you mean it." She commanded.

He raised one eyebrow. "And why should I, you filthy mudblood?"

"Because." And she lowered her head to plant another searing kiss on the lips that had just been tainted with the foulest of insults.

As her kiss threatened to melt his brain once more, he thought 'Maybe she was just as tainted as he was... She's certainly just as twisted, just as disturbed...'

Or maybe they were both just kidding themselves.


	2. Power

Canon Compliant

* * *

He would always be her first. The first and only person to truly own her heart.

She could remember the first time she looked into his emerald green eyes. Really looked INTO them as opposed to looking at them while making eye contact. It was at that very moment she decided that she would give up everything for him. She would live for him, and even die for him, and she would always love him with every fiber of her being.

That was just how deeply connected she felt to Harry.

Of course, they had disagreements and squabbles, none as bad as with Ron, and maybe some could be blamed on Ron, but she could always count on Harry being there for her. She was utterly devoted to him, and even now, at nearly thirty years old with a husband and children of her own, if he showed up on her front door needing her help with something involving his 'saving people' thing she would be there for him, Ron and the children would have to deal with it.

Harry possessed her soul in that way.

It wasn't that he was her first lover. Ron had that distinction. But somehow, even though she loved Ron in a romantic way, most of the time anyway, something about Harry possessed her in a way that Ron would never be capable of.

Power.

Somehow, someway, something about the way Harry carried himself oozed power without seeming arrogant. Harry was very understated about his status in the world. His clothes were not extravagant like some would have, filled with rare golden unicorn hair and the like, but it was clear that his robes and causal Muggle clothes were always well made. For all the forgiveness Harry had for how his relatives treated him, he still devoutly avoided all things Muggle whenever possible.

It was something that certainly did not make Harry unique. After the failure to mend her relationship with her parents, she very rarely ventured into the Muggle world.

They had that in common, at least. Failed relationships with Muggle relatives, and re-enacting tawdry romance novel scenes.

It was a part of the whole power thing for Hermione. Ron may have been her first lover, but he was hardly her only one. She and Harry had been having an affair for more than half their marriages. There was something that Hermione craved that could only be satisfied by staring deep into those emerald green eyes and reaching Harry's soul as they connected in the most Biblical of ways.

Sadly enough, Hermione knew that if Ron were to ever find out, between anger at her and indignation that Harry was cheating on his little sister, he would understand.

Heck, half the Wizarding world would understand if they could see into his eyes like she has.

The first time was a cloak room their 'seventh' year. While not two months prior she had spent a very romantic weekend with Ron involving Madam Puddifoots and the Room of Requirement, she had gotten into yet another horrible row with Ron, and this time he took Ginny with him. He accused the two of them of spending way too much time together, when the only thing that had really been going on was a bit of Potions and Ancient Runes tutoring. Since Harry had never taken Ancient Runes, but had become interested in it since a warding expert with the Aurors needed expertise at reading runes, Hermione had volunteered to teach him everything she could.

Harry had caught on fast, partially motivated to be something more than just a regular Auror. The two of them HAD been spending late nights working in the library, and it HAD seemed very suspicious. But it was harmless, until that one time. And every third time since.

They were avoiding Lavender Brown, whose new goal was to seduce Harry and have his love child, and so they ran until they were on the sixth floor. Hearing footsteps, Hermione pushed Harry into the nearest door, hopped in herself and closed it behind her with a slightly overpowered "notice me not" charm. Hermione turned and bumped into Harry and a wall.

"_Pushed me in the smallest room you could find, eh?" _ Harry had joked.

Hermione had turned, and came face to lovely face with those green eyes. Between those green eyes, his proximity to her, and the fact that they could not stay in the closet hiding from Lav Lav (who they could still hear in the hallway) and NOT touch very closely was the beginning of the end. They stared at each other for what was likely an eternity. Hermione staring deep into those green eyes and reading the words etched on his soul.

Every emotion and pent up feeling came out in a torrent with that first kiss. The first kiss they shared awakened a part of Hermione's brain that had been forgotten since the incident with Sirius and the time turner, the first time she had almost kissed Harry. Even subsequently, alone in the Forest of Dean, there had been the ever present thought of "Ron! Ginny!' to keep those emotions at bay, even if it was a close call many of those nights they spent alone in the snow.

She supposed that if Nagini had not knocked Harry out when he saved her that would have been it, then and there. He was oozing power then, too.

And so the affair began. Every chance they got for three solid months. Then Hermione realized what she was doing was wrong to Ron. She never told Ron, but Harry and herself began practicing Occlumency in earnest. They knew that they were too close to slipping, to revealing what they had been doing long after they had reunited with the Weasleys. Then came graduation, and proposals, and closure from the torrid affair that marked their seventh year.

Until two years into her marriage with Ron, and a year into Harry's marriage with Ginny. Ron had abandoned the Auror lifestyle to become a businessman, and Ginny was usually on tour with the Holyhead Harpies. Something had set the two of them off, and they were sharing each others warmth every since.

They both could put up a good front, even dancing like close friends and not lovers at various Ministry events. They only person who even hinted at something more was, of all people, Draco Malfoy. The former Death Eater worked with her at the Ministry, and had posed the question while the two of them were doing an obligatory spin around the dance floor at the Annual Anniversary Gala. Ginny was there, but Ron had been close to closing a deal with a large Texas leather producer for high quality American leather at a deep discount. Thus, former Hogwarts colleagues were each giving Hermione a spin. The hatred and animosity between Hermione and Draco had long cooled to a 'never quite friends but not enemies' level.

"_Shagging Potter and Weasley, are we Ms. Granger?" _ Draco had whispered.

"_It's Ms. Weasley now, Malfoy. It's been Weasley for a while and yet you can never manage to remember. And no, I am not." _Hermione had whispered back.

Draco had chuckled lightly as if Hermione had told a humorous joke, and whispered again. "_Somehow I wonder if you believe that yourself. You can deny it all you want to, Hermione. But the way he looks at you when he thinks nobody is looking proves that he's seen what's under your lovely dress robes, and he can't wait to have another glance." _

"_You must be mistaken. Why are you paying so close attention to Harry anyway?" _

Draco chuckled again. _ "Fine. Keep your secrets. I won't tell a soul. I'm over that petty schoolboy feud. He saved us all. So what if he wants to shag half the witches in Europe? He deserves a witch like you to spice up his life every now and again. Who am I to destroy his happiness?" _

It had been a sign to the both of them to be more careful, more guarded in their social interactions, but other than Draco and Luna, nobody had ever said anything to them, and neither Draco nor Luna would say anything.

Hermione thought about their most recent encounter, a hot and steamy affair right in her Ministry office. Yep. If Harry suddenly appeared she would drop everything and be gone in a heartbeat, be it in a position as 'friend' or 'more.'

"Hermione?" Harry's voice called out from the floo the next room over.

Hermione walked over to the floo, thankful that the children were with George and Angelina's brood for a Junior Quiddich tournament Fred was participating in. It was a weekend-long event, and Ron took the opportunity to research expansion in Canada for his Quiddich supply company. She was blissfully alone and enjoying the comforts of her massive library.

"Yes, Harry?"

Harry sighed. "There you are. Ginny's on tour again with the Harpies, and I need help. You're a dab hand at Ancient Runes."

Hermione laughed. "You're good yourself. "

Harry nodded sheepishly. "I learned from the best, but this is a two person job."

Hermione frowned. "Something for work?"

Harry smiled a little. "You could say that. You know they're finally getting around to auctioning off the Lestrange Vault, and I've gotten most of the stuff not deemed too Dark for regular purchase. One of the objects is a little, odd, and its covered in runes. If we work together we can figure out what it's for."

Hermione's frown increased. "What is it?"

Harry smirked. "It looks like a swing, I think".

Hermione laughed mentally. Covered in runes…. Ha! "I'll be over shortly."

Today, it was both.


End file.
